medicine
Terminally ill boy Archie dies in England
Hollie Dance, Archie Battersbee’s mother, outside the Royal London Hospital after the death of her son. photo
© Aaron Chown/PA Wire/dpa
A tragedy ends in tears: after months of struggle, the family of the English boy Archie has to say goodbye to him. His death joins a series of sad cases in Great Britain.
After months of fighting, the parents spent the last valuable hours with their son, and then the last spark of hope went out.
The equipment that kept the boy Archie alive, who had been in a deep coma for months, has been switched off in a London hospital. The 12-year-old died on Saturday at 12:15 p.m. (local time), as his mother Hollie Dance announced in front of the hospital. “He fought to the end. I’m so proud to be his mother.”
Archie has been in a coma since April. In an accident at home in Southend-on-Sea around 60 kilometers east of London, he suffered serious brain injuries, possibly during an Internet test of courage. The treating doctors saw no chance of recovery. At the Royal London Hospital, he was kept alive with ventilators and medication, among other things.
The parents had legally fought for their son with all their might – first for his life, then for the circumstances of his death. Ultimately, they wanted him transferred from the hospital to a hospice so he could spend his final hours in a quieter, more peaceful environment. Corresponding applications before the Court of Appeal in London and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg failed on Friday.
The hospital had previously refused a move to the hospice – the boy’s condition was too unstable and the risk of transporting him in an ambulance too great. The London Court of Appeal also said it was in the boy’s best interests to have his life support removed in hospital rather than elsewhere. The court in Strasbourg then declared that the application did not fall within its jurisdiction.
All legal options were exhausted. “I’ve done everything I promised my little boy,” mother Hollie Dance told Sky News on Friday night. Through tears, she realized there was nothing more the family could do. At that point, she already knew that the hospital would end her life support by the following morning.
According to his family, Archie’s medication was stopped at 10am on Saturday before the ventilators were removed two hours later. Ella Carter, the fiancee of Archie’s older brother Tom, said, crying profusely at the mother’s side: “There is absolutely nothing dignified about watching a family member or a child choke. No family should ever have to go through what we went through. It’s barbaric.”
The sad case is reminiscent of similar disputes over terminally ill children in Great Britain. The British health service, NHS, which is under severe financial pressure, tends to withdraw life-sustaining measures much earlier than would be the case in Germany, for example. In addition, the wishes of parents and relatives are not taken into account to the same extent. What is in the best interests of the patient is often decided by judges on the recommendation of medical professionals.
Mom at SkyNews